Linked Life Data

11556612

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/11556612

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
9
pubmed:dateCreated
2001-9-14
pubmed:abstractText
This paper draws on social linguistics to inquire into the meaning and function of complexity in illness narratives. According to social linguists, five different story-type genres occur in spoken English. These are illustrated and differentiated using examples drawn from 10 interviews with people who have undergone colectomy for colorectal cancer. In order to test a hypothesis that complexity in illness narratives is related to life disruption, the 10 accounts were ranked in terms of their generic complexity. Measures of life disruption were based on rankings furnished independently by two readers from different disciplines who were blind to the hypothesis being tested. These two rankings showed a high level of agreement (r(s) = 0.85, p<0.01). When the two life disruption rankings and the generic complexity ranking were compared, a high degree of concordance between the three rankings was observed (W = 0.91, p<0.01). No evidence was found of associations between generic complexity and gender, interviewer, surgical outcome in terms of stoma (p>0.05), age (p>0.7) nor time since diagnosis (p>0.1). We conclude that in this study, generic complexity was strongly and significantly related to life disruption. To explain the function of complexity in interaction, we characterise the illness narrative as a genre in its own right, and argue that illness narratives need to be considered both in terms of the work they do both on the listener and for the narrator. In the former case, complexity opens up a discursive space for the dynamic positioning of the interlocutor. In the latter case, we propose that complexity reflects the degree to which the process of re-ordering life by assigning meaning is occurring as the interaction unfolds. In both cases, complex narratives can thus be understood as "hard working" narratives.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Nov
pubmed:issn
0277-9536
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
53
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
1227-36
pubmed:dateRevised
2007-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2001
pubmed:articleTitle
Life disruption and generic complexity: a social linguistic analysis of narratives of cancer illness.
pubmed:affiliation
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. cjordens@med.usyd.edu.au
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't